by Claudia San Miguel
Our series, Know Your Park Lands Art, guides you through various creative displays within your Adelaide Park Lands. This time, we’ve put the spotlight on an intriguing artwork from the 1980s, which comes with a question mark.
Located in Light Square / Wauwi, Richard Tipping’s artwork, The Eternal Question, provokes those who pass it to ponder about its meaning and consider the eternal question of why are we here at all?
Tipping’s sculpture was originally made for the Adelaide Festival in 1982 and installed next to the River Torrens / Karrawirra Parri, where it stayed only for several months of that year.
In 1984, it was donated to the Art Gallery of SA, where it stayed, at the rear of the Gallery, for 19 years, before being placed at its current location in Light Square / Wauwi in 2003.
Richard Tipping’s ‘Eternal Question’ artwork in Light Square / Wauwi in 2015. Until that time, the blocks were embedded directly into the ground. Photo: Shane Sody.
The Eternal Question comprises six black granite blocks, placed in a circle on the ground, with a seventh block in the centre of the circle.
One word is carved into the sides of each of the outer blocks. The words are “it”, “if” and “is”.
According to the artist:
“it” represents matter
“is” represents being; and
“if” represents mind
all signifying “the eternal question”. The block in the centre is a stylised question mark.
The central block of The Eternal Question. Photo: Richard Tipping.
“The Eternal Question” in Light Square / Wauwi in 2016, after the blocks had been placed on a slate circle. Photo: Richard Tipping.
Placing the blocks in a circle symbolises that the question or questions are “eternal”. The question or questions are not linear. Instead the three words can be continuously revisited and re-examined as we reach new meanings and interpretations of both the question(s) and the many potential answers.
“The Eternal Question” artwork positioned by the River Torrens / Karrawirra Parri in 1982. Photo: Richard Tipping.
Tipping’s unique approach as a visual artist is exhibited in the sculpture’s clever structure. When viewing it from various positions, you are met with different combinations of the words presented, such as “If it is?” and “It is if?”
It’s simple yet profound, with its meaning being open to interpretation by whoever views it.
About the artist
Artist and poet, Richard Tipping.
Richard Tipping was born in Adelaide in 1949. He studied at Flinders University, undertaking film, philosophy and literature, before working as a poet and visual artist.
Tipping has worked in a variety of areas – some of which focused on photography, filmmaking, visual poetry, and music.
Later, he completed three degrees, including a doctorate at the University of Technology Sydney in 2007. He worked as an academic in media arts before switching to focus on art full-time.
Tipping’s broad range of knowledge and diversity as an artist gives him a unique perspective and allows him to create thought-provoking pieces, implementing his own poetic texts into tangible pieces of engraved art.
For more articles in our Know Your Park Lands Art series, head here: www.adelaide-parklands.asn.au/know-your-park-lands-art.
Main photo, top: Experience Adelaide.
